Please complete this Course Evaluation (*Please don't forget to click "Submit" at the bottom. Thanks!
Student option to incorporate a collaborative resource we haven't used yet.
The final assignment is to create a collaborative student activity using at least 1 virtual resource we did not use during this course. You may incorporate tools we have learned about (Wikis, Google Docs, etc.), but the focal point should be something we have not used. Think of this as an opportunity to work with and create something you've been curious about but just didn't have the time / motivation to work on before now. Grading for the final assignment will be based on the following:
Point Value
Criteria
3
The student activity is collaborative in nature. (Some examples/ideas: Peers must work together or contribute to create a mutual finished product. Students must utilize a chat room, live chat, discussion forum, etc. to meet in order to work with peers or field experts in another state. Students create an individual or small group project, but then conduct peer review and feedback (via Google Form Surveys, wikis, Edmodo, Google Groups, etc.)
3
The student activity clearly explains the desired learning objectives. (Pretend that we are your students. As we read, view, or listen to the learning objectives explained in the activity materials you create, do we really know what we are expected to learn?)
3
The student activity clearly explains the teacher directions and expectations. (As we read, view, or listen to the directions provided in the activity materials, do we really know what we are should be doing, how our learning will be assessed, and how our work will be graded, etc.?)
6
Activity Length / Activity Completeness. (If your student activity consists merely of typed objectives, directions and other explanations (kind of like a worksheet you would use) it should be at least 2 complete typed pages.) Again, there's some flexibility here because some people may have typed directions, some people may create a webquest, some people may create a Jing video or Youtube video tutorial including objectives, directions, grading, etc. Some people might create their activity simply on a new webpage, and the list of ideas goes on and on. Just ask yourself if the activity you've created seems more like "adequate" or more like "impressive." Aim for impressive!
Total Point Value = 15% of overall course average
After week 5, 70% of our course grade will have been completed. This assignment makes up 15% of the remaining course credit, and 15% comes from your overall course participation. If you have any questions regarding this, don't hesitate to ask for clarification.
Please post the link to your student activity as a response to the appropriate discussion topic this week (*Please make sure we can easily access your activity)
Week 5: 8/5/11 - 8/11/11
Assignment 1
Complete this survey form as you review at least 2 of your peers Jing or Voicethread assignments which are available on our discussion forum.
Assignment 2
More class technology tools: introduction to concept or "mind" mapping (Please pay particular attention to proprietary programs vs. open source applications)
Sample screenshots of some McHugh activities (*Note: Here you will find 3 different concept mapping activities)
Participants should download a FREE trial version of a program if needed. (If you have Inspiration, that will suit our needs; if not, you can download afree trial version. (In the future, if you are interested in having students work collaboratively on concept maps, you may want to use one of the free open source apps found at the "mind" mapping link above.)
Try out the program features and consider possible activity ideas for your class
Assignment for next week:
Generate a concept map activity for your class using one of the websites provided at the link above.There are many possibilities. I suggest either fill-in or matching where you provide all necessary info and students put it in a logical (correct) order, or exploratory where students actually gather and insert images, text, ideas, etc. to create the concept map. Here is the tentative review form that will be used.
Up until now with my classes I've personally been using mywebspiration.com which I believe is no longer free. What a shame, because this thing was like a combination of Google Docs and Inspiration!
Post the link to your student concept map activity as a response to the appropriate discussion topic this week (*Please make sure we can easily view your activity)
Assignment 3
Social networking via Edmodo in the K-12 Classroom
Create an account (I think you should select "I'm a Teacher" so that you can use the same account later with your own students)
Perform a search to see if your school district has an edmodo group
Read or watch reviews of edmodo to see what it's all about and what some teachers are doing with it
Practice using the features of edmodo (Edmodo Help Menu)
Briefly compare Jing and Voicethread and consider which you would prefer to use with students
Create a student activity incorporating the tool you decided to use
Use your tool (either Jing or Voicethread to create a (2-5 minutes) video explanation of your student activity and why you chose your tool (You could explain a bit about the purpose, learning objectives, content, directions / what the students will be doing, and why, assessment, etc.)
Post the link to your video explanation as a response to the discussiontopic this week. (*Please make sure the link works)
Details: Honestly, you can use whatever specific content/format that applies to you, but next week I'm going to ask for peer review and feedback using this survey form.
Finally, I think that you'll find that these are both valuable resources. I know some of you were eager about working with these tools specifically. I look forward to your work and ideas, and I hope that this provides you with a creative learning opportunity yielding something you can effectively use with students.
Week 3: 7/22/11 - 7/28/11
Recap on the Google Docs Assignment: At this point you should have an embedded Google Doc Form on your wiki and for the second part of this assignment you should have created a student activity incorporating Google Docs and placed that on your wiki as well.
OK, after reflecting on the first couple weeks of the course and all of your input, I've decided to keep the week 3 assignments focused on continuing work on class websites. After that, we'll move on to other things. Again, if there's anything specific you'd like to focus on, please let me know. After much thought, I'd really like to allow increasing flexibility as we continue through the final month of the course (in terms of the tools you use to generate class activities). That way, we can all explore new collaborative resources, share them with each other, and create some resources we will be more likely to use in the classroom. With that in mind, please begin to reflect on methods and tools that you already put to great use (to share with us), and those you would like to focus on, OR problems for which a technical solution may help solve.
Visit the Contact Info Page yet again and add a link to your class website (see my examples)
NOTE: It may take a great deal of time to include ALL applicable course resources within a new teacher website. All electronic documents that you already have may easily be added to your website resources once you know the procedure. However, items that you only have hard copies of need to be scanned or otherwise converted into an electronic version that can be placed on your website. This can be very time consuming now, but pays dividends in the long run as you and your students access these documents repeatedly over time. Just as an example, I regularly get emails from parents, guidance counselors, homebound instructors, etc. requesting work for students who are absent. In those situations, I can send them the link to my class summaries and assignments which link directly to my course resources. Imagine the time and energy that is saved! Additionally, whenever a student asks for notes, worksheet, etc. that are "misplaced" you can send them to the website. This puts the responsibility solely on the student for maintaining organization and getting what they need for themselves. I think you will agree that this is much better than enabling them by handing them an extra copy of what they lost.The steps for adding specific course content to a teacher website depends on the tool being used, but everyone should take certain things into consideration. (i.e. Maybe class notes should be offered in both PDF and Microsoft Word form. Maybe links to free software downloads should be included on the website, etc.) Basically, you should consider what you want the class website to be able to do for you and your students. Also, you can always add to it over time, involve your students in the process, etc.
Pictures, video and music can be effective add-ons to your new teacher website.However, school Internet filters sometimes don't like Youtube and other video sharing sites. Therefore, participants should download an applicable video from Youtube to their desktop using Keepvid and then upload that video to your teacher website. For the sake of this assignment and for the time being, please place the video somewhere on the homepage of your wiki. Thanks!
And since we also probably know from experience that not all file types are supported by website apps like wikispaces, you should also experiment with online file conversion using the website Zamzar. To do this, try using the Youtube video that you downloaded to your desktop. Upload it to Zamzar, and then request that it be converted into a different file format. (For example, if the downloaded video is .mP4, use Zamzar to convert it into a .wmv)
Discussion: What is the most overall effective method for getting students to use the Internet for research in your classroom? How can they, and we, verify that only reliable sources/information is used? How should you require students to put this info to use in your classroom? (For example: Your students are working on a collaborative wiki assignment where they are researching and adding info to a table. Is it acceptable for them to copy and paste info, links, images, etc. from the web directly?) So again, how should you require students to put this info to use in your classroom? Do you know of any better methods?
Week 2: 7/15/11 - 7/21/11
Poll: Do we need a live class meeting this week on Elluminate?
Share results of the Week 1 Poll
I'm going to share this FORM with all of you on Google Documents (You should receive email notification, if not login to Gmail and click "documents")
You should review the results of the Week 1 Poll (Notice the spreadsheet format itself is not the most appropriate for analyzing all types of data. So make sure you click on "Form" and "Show Summary of Responses.")
Take a moment to consider how this process may benefit you and your own students. i.e. I created a simple poll, survey, quiz (whatever you want to call it), added a link to the poll from our website, as each of you took the poll the results were automatically added to the spreadsheet. From that point, I could analyze the data myself, share it with 1 person or, in this case, with all of you.
Review
If you have not done so, please include hyperlinks to your wiki on the Contact page.
Here is a drawing that I've created in Google Docs
I want everyone to add to and manipulate the drawing in an attempt to create a visual translation (kind of like a concept map) of our 1st discussion. As long as you're logged in you should be able to make changes that are saved to the drawing automatically. Note: You can add/delete/move text, images, arrows, shapes, links, etc. and we can all see who has added what (revision history). GD Drawing how-to
The idea here is similar to the whiteboard activity we did on the first night, but here I want to see more than just text boxes. Also, keep in mind that the original topic was "What do we already know, do, feel about classroom technology? vs. What do we want to know about it?" You can add content based on your response and/or your peers.
Collaborate: Go to the course Participant Contact Page. Now visit and review two of your peer's newly created wikispaces according to the original directions I provided last week. Feel free to discuss what looks good, what could use improvement, any editing issues and/or little hurdles you may have encountered as you were setting up your own space. Just what do all of those funny looking editing toolbar buttons actually do? Some people might have the same questions as you or you may be able to help someone else out if they still have questions about editing. While at the wikispaces you are reviewing, post your comments, review, etc. as a new discussion using the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. (If you see that the wiki has already been reviewed 2+ times, please go on to review someone else's wiki so that everyone gets feedback). Make sure to also check back at your space later in the week for comments & reviews so that you can make any necessary improvements before I review them myself.
Moving Forward
View: What are Google Docs "In Plain English." and How a survey (form) is created using Google Docs.
Assignment: use Google Docs to create a survey or quiz applicable to your specific teaching situation. Here is the assignment document: Google Docs Assignment.doc (Note: Make sure both the embedded form and the student activity you create appear on your wiki since that is where I will be looking for them.)
Teacher websites:
Search the web for examples of good teacher websites.
Respond to this week's discussion on "What makes a good classroom website?" As an experiment this week, lets try replying to my initial post rather than creating 13 new topics. When you want to reply to a peer, click on his or her specific response under my original and then reply to them.
Teacher Website Assignment Part 1 (Sign Up and Get Started). The first part of the assignment for next week is to get signed up for a teacher website and to begin to explore the website editing functions. NOTE: Participants can choose to use a website package offered by their school district, wikispaces, or many others.
. (The directions may be slightly outdated, but there is a lot of info on their homepage that will help get you started)
Create a gmail / Google Documents account if you do not have one already. (If you have one through your school I don't care if you use it as long as you know that you are able to share docs with individuals outside of your school's domain.)
Complete the Participant survey. This is a technology familiarity survey created using google docs. All of the results will be automatically populated to a google spreadsheet. By evaluating the results, I will be able to see how familiar participants are with technology resources and will be able to tailor the course more for the needs of this particular group.
Begin to edit your own new wikispace following this example page as a guide. By 7/15, all I'm looking for is an intro about you, a picture of you and a section for your assignments. On any wikispaces.com webpage there should be a "help" link at the top. (This is a great resource if you're having trouble) NOTE: wikispaces DO BEHAVE A BIT DIFFERENTLY DEPENDING ON THE INTERNET BROWSER BEING USED. (Most of the time, I use Firefox instead of Safari or Chrome, and I've never used Internet Explorer, but you probably can)
Complete the first discussion response @ our Google Group
Since this is the first week, I've scheduled an online meeting on Monday 7/11/11@ 7 PM
Meeting Objectives:
Start Recording Session
Brief Elluminate intro on basic functions and ensure everyone can hear, participate
Welcome and Introductions (Please, a bit about yourself, any effective classroom technology experiences you may want to share, and any resources you would like to focus on during this course)
Initial questions? Bullets you would like to add to this list for tonight?
Purpose of this Course Activity: Why all the hype about classroom technology?
Consider what you think the main purpose, theme, objectives of this course are
What does classroom technology look and sound like?
What are some goals you have for your own classes and can classroom technology help to accomplish them?
What are the most important technology skills/resources we should be using with our students? Why?
Add your input to the whiteboard (this can include images, text, links, etc.)
Briefly cover/discuss what we've added as necessary
Course Work may include: Collaborative Documents, Website Editing, Class Discussions, Research, Webinar, Concept Mapping, Audio/Video Editing, Learning Communities, and much more.
My Expectations:
Complete all assignments, discussions, etc. by the assigned due date (Friday night of the current week unless otherwise specified)
Communicate and collaborate with me and other course participants regularly
Put forth your best efforts in order to meet and exceed course objectives, and to create some resources you can actually use
Webinar Experiment Activity: Lets see if we can figure out what else Elluminate can do (Granting Moderator Privileges, Breakout rooms, etc.) This is also a good chance to meet the others, share your experiences, resources. Don't hesitate to try any of these Elluminate functions. Have fun and let us know if you find something interesting!
Week 5: 8/5/11 - 8/11/11
Assignment 1
Assignment 2
Assignment 3
Week 4: 7/29/11 - 8/4/11
Week 3: 7/22/11 - 7/28/11
Week 2: 7/15/11 - 7/21/11
Review
Moving Forward
Week 1: 7/8/11 - 7/14/11
Complete the first discussion response @ our Google Group
Welcome and Introductions (Please, a bit about yourself, any effective classroom technology experiences you may want to share, and any resources you would like to focus on during this course)
Initial questions? Bullets you would like to add to this list for tonight?
Purpose of this Course Activity: Why all the hype about classroom technology?
Course Work may include: Collaborative Documents, Website Editing, Class Discussions, Research, Webinar, Concept Mapping, Audio/Video Editing, Learning Communities, and much more.
My Expectations:
Webinar Experiment Activity: Lets see if we can figure out what else Elluminate can do (Granting Moderator Privileges, Breakout rooms, etc.) This is also a good chance to meet the others, share your experiences, resources. Don't hesitate to try any of these Elluminate functions. Have fun and let us know if you find something interesting!